Sensuous

13 March — Saturday

I’ll have to write about Bill tomorrow because I haven’t seen him yet today. It was one-fifteen the last time I looked at a clock and I’m supposed to go over there about three or three-thirty. I just got back from shopping, picking up a few odds and ends, and there’s nothing I feel like reading so I thought I would do the day’s diary-keeping, get it out of the way now.

Oh, I am so full of shit.

Lying to a diary is contemptible. Why is it harder to put on paper the truths which one already recognizes? Because print has a more permanent quality than thought. Because it is somehow more concrete, less ephemeral.

I am typing because I do not want to type after I get back from Bill’s place. After having decided that it is important to lend immediacy to these entries by recording experiences as soon as possible, I am copping out by making today’s entry in advance. My own rules — one entry a day, no more and no less, will then make it impossible for me to type anything more later on.

But it is true that I do have the desire to write now, and maybe that’s a real part of it. I left something out last night. The reflections on lesbianism were prompted by more than the faint appeal of the girl who played Chopin.

I believe a lesbian tried to pick me up.

I am unsure of this, and prefer to believe that my own uncertainty about the precise circumstances of the perhaps-pickup played a part in my failing to mention it. I think that’s probably true.

Let it be said — one of the reasons for this diary, one of the very important reasons for making these entries, is because I occasionally fear madness. Fear a particular form of madness. Fear that I will reach a point where I will have trouble separating fact from fiction, fantasy from reality. I have had this thought before, and have possibly put it on paper before. I can’t remember. But it is a real fear, and thus to one person, to Smith-Corona Electra 110, I must be true.

Perhaps a conversation last night was only an attempted pickup in my mind. But it still belongs here, with the preface that it may have been innocent.

Woman about thirty-five, my height, a little heavier. Can’t remember what she was wearing. Dark hair in a pony tail. Strong features. Beak of a nose. Walked alongside me on the way from the hall.

Said I looked familiar. Had I gone to Barnard? No, I said. Brooklyn College, I said. Wondered, as she would have been at least eight years ahead of me in school, and did I look that old to her that I might have been her classmate? Answered my unvoiced question — she was an instructor at Barnard, thought I might have been in a class of hers. “But I knew the minute you spoke you weren’t the girl I remembered. You’re prettier, and you have a much better speaking voice. I suppose a lot of people comment on your voice.”

No one had ever said anything about my voice.

Did I have time for a cup of coffee, or was my husband waiting for me? Not married, I said. But I had to help my mother and was already later than I’d planned. Did I live at home? I said I did.

More chat, but nothing vital. The fact that I lived at home seemed to lessen her interest, although this, too, may have been my imagination. Maybe she simply didn’t believe me, and was turned off by my lack of interest.

I’m positive she was a dyke. And I was easier with her than I would have been having the same conversation with a man. But I can explain that. I was naive. Didn’t think there was any sexual overture in her conversation at first. (Does seem unmistakable in retrospect.) In any conversation with a man I am aware of sexual interest on his part and guard against it. I am less inclined to suspect it from a woman. And thus was more open to talk with her, even saying where I went to school and that I was unmarried.

Complimenting me on my voice. Did she learn that one herself or read it somewhere? A dead giveaway. No one has ever said anything about my voice.

If she’s a dyke (and I’m beginning to think it matters less and less) it’s interesting she tried to pick me up. No one ever did before. And unless I am imagining it (which is possible) more men are looking at me on the streets.

Perhaps I’m getting prettier.

Perhaps something shows in me. In my eyes, in my walk, in my face. The excitement of Monday night, and the excitement I hope will happen this afternoon.

I have to end this and get over there. It’s a shame, not that I have to go because I am anxious to, trembling with excitement about it. But because this is one of those times when I am really enjoying this diary-keeping. I could go on typing for hours.

Think of the paper Bill is saving me.